• High times: The next five states to tackle pot laws

    "A lot of legislators are more open, they’re holding more hearings, they’re emboldened."
    NBC News (US)
    Monday, June 2, 2014

    cannabis-plant3Weed is legal in at least some form in 22 states and the District of Columbia. Most allow it for medical use only. Colorado and Washington this year enacted laws that allow recreational use by adults. But more than two dozen states are considering new or expanded marijuana reform legislation, including complete legalization for adults, medical marijuana, hemp use and decriminalization. Which are the next five states likely to legalize marijuana?

  • Global drug policy is still deadly and ineffective

    Samuel Oakford
    Vice
    Sunday, June 1, 2014

    If you actually read the treaties, while they do set firm limitations on the legal, "non-medical" or "non-scientific" sale of schedule drugs — limits that Uruguay, Colorado and Washington ignored when legalizing cannabis — they don’t otherwise obligate countries to penalize drug use. Even the 1988 convention, the harshest of the three, which instructs countries to criminalize use, still provides an out for states, allowing such laws only as they are "subject to its constitutional principles and the basic concepts of its legal system." This loophole has been used by the Dutch to argue legally for their coffee shops.

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  • How dangerous synthetic cannabis became Britain's most popular new legal high

    The Huffington Post (UK)
    Sunday, June 1, 2014

    spiceThe influx of legal, synthetic forms of cannabis that can be more potent and dangerous than the natural, illegal drug exposes Britain's "utterly ridiculous" cannabis laws. "Synthetic cannabis might be the straw that breaks the camel's back in terms of cannabis reform," says Steve Rolles, senior policy analyst at the charity Transform. "We currently have an unbelievably stupid situation where people can buy fake cannabis that's more dangerous. It's utterly ridiculous.

  • Limburg marijuana growers turn over €240m a year: local paper

    Dutch News (Netherlands)
    Saturday, May 31, 2014

    Despite efforts to clamp down on marijuana plantations, growers in the southern province of Limburg turn over some €240m a year, according to calculations by local paper De Limburger. Last year the police dismantled 599 plantations in the province. Using the police estimate of finding one in three, this would mean there are 1,800 plantations in the province. (See also: One of Tilburg's biggest industries is marijuana)

  • Cannabis legalization: the seed of a good idea or a pipedream?

    Crop substitution programs have failed
    The Daily Star (Lebanon)
    Friday, May 30, 2014

    According to Jalal Mahfouz, head of the Planning and Development Center in Hermel (Lebanon), any move to legalize the illegal industry, which is believed to be worth millions of dollars, would backfire by reducing prices and demand. He argued that hashish was currently expensive because it was illegal, and that if that changed the plant’s value would plummet. He also cast doubt on the idea that the government would be able to enforce any such law – even if supportive of the industry – given its near total absence from the remote area. (Text version)

  • 'Thousands of inmates' can soon be released under drug law

    Smalltime pushers offered alternative sentences
    Ansa (Italy)
    Thursday, May 29, 2014

    A new decree that overhauls Italy's drugs laws paves the way for releasing "thousands of convicted smalltime drug dealers from prison". The move follows parliamentary approval of a decree earlier this month that overhauls Italy's drugs laws and reclassifies marijuana as a soft rather than a hard narcotic. The new law also effectively removes jail time as a sentence for smalltime dealers, offering community service and other options in its place. (See also: Council of Europe lauds Italian moves on prison overcrowding)

  • GOP House backs state medical marijuana laws

    The Seattle Times (US)
    Thursday, May 29, 2014

    rohrabacherThe GOP-controlled House voted in favor of blocking the federal government from interfering with states that permit the use of medical marijuana. The surprising 219-189 vote came as the House debated a bill funding the Justice Department's budget. The amendment by conservative GOP Rep. Dana Rohrabacher of California -- the first state to legalize medical marijuana -- came as almost half the states have legalized marijuana for medical uses. "Public opinion is shifting," Rohrabacher said, noting a recent Pew Research Center survey that found 61 percent of Republicans support medical marijuana. (See also: Is Congress finally catching on about medical marijuana?)

  • Decriminalize drug use and public health

    Drug policies should emphasize health, not punishment, says Dr. Brian Emerson, a medical consultant with the BC Ministry of Health
    CMAJ (Canada)
    Wednesday, May 28, 2014

    Canada's war on drugs has caused serious harm, particularly for the nation's most vulnerable, according to a Canadian Public Health Association (CPHA) policy paper. The report, A New Approach to Managing Psychoactive Substances, calls for the decriminalization of drugs such as marijuana, heroin and cocaine, as well as strategies to reduce harm and address the social conditions underlying problem substance use.

  • Ganja advocates demand gov't develops 12-point plan for the industry

    Th Gleaner (Jamaica)
    Sunday, May 25, 2014

    At the first Cannabis Conference held at the University of the West Indies, stakeholders have called for the criminal records of persons convicted for smoking small amounts of ganja to be expunged and are calling for the laws to be amended to allow for the personal use of small amounts of ganja in private. But while they want ganja to be decriminalised for personal use by adults and for religious purposes, Government must maintain its ban on the smoking of all substances in public and must put in place safeguards and education programmes to reduce juvenile use and demand for ganja.

  • Going to pot: legalised cannabis edges nearer in west after US states end ban

    Debate among health experts switches to regulation of cannabis as drug policy in US, Uruguay and Spain flouts UN conventions
    The Guardian (UK)
    Friday, May 23, 2014

    Legalisation of cannabis is making slow but unstoppable progress across much of the developed world, many experts believe, following the end of prohibition in two US states. In Amsterdam, long famous for its coffee shops, international experts gathering to discuss cannabis regulation said the international conventions, once so heavily policed by the US, would now be increasingly flouted. Already many countries, most notably the Netherlands and Spain, have bypassed the rules.

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